“Oh, okay.” I think this is the quietest I’ve seen her since we arrived a few days ago and I know I shouldn’t expect anything better after avoiding her for forty-eight hours, but I still don’t know what upset her earlier and it’s bugging me. “Thank you.”
We both get into position, her on the mat and me beside her, and I suddenly can’t remember how to do this. I’ve done first aid training before because Coach Faulkner makes us do it every year, telling us we’ll never know when we’ll need it—and yet here I am once again, clueless.
I watch Xander moving Emilia and it suddenly comes back to me. Gripping the back of her thigh, I start to lift her leg into the correct position. “You should tell him you don’t like it when he touches you.”
Thankfully the task in hand gives me the perfect opportunity not to look at her face, but I can feel her eyes burning into me. “And you know that how?”
“Your entire body language changes when he’s near you.”
She scoffs. “You seem to have noticed a lot about my body for someone who’s barely looked at me since we got here.”
Her words make me freeze, but only for a second before I push through it, gently moving her arms to the right angles and rolling her onto her side into the recovery position. “Just tell him, Aurora.”
“Are you jealous?” she asks, rolling onto her back and moving into a sitting position. She’s leaning back onto her hands, her hair ruffled from the mat, light freckles beginning to decorate her cheeks. She’s fucking beautiful, but there’s something different about her today. Of course I’m jealous of it being so easy for Clay to just talk to her and touch her without caring about any potential consequences. “No, I’m not jealous.”
She looks sad. “Then you don’t need to worry, do you?”
“Aurora, I—”
She stands before I can say anything else. “Excuse me, I’m going to use the rest room.”
I nod and watch her walk away, lying down on the mat so I don’t have to watch everyone else getting along and moving onto the next task. Five minutes pass before she reappears, dropping down onto the grass beside me.
She tucks her hair behind her ears and hugs her knees close to her chest, offering, “I’m sorry for being weird. I’m having a bad day. It’s my dad’s birthday and, well, we have a really shitty relationship. To call it a relationship at all is actually a huge stretch andddd now I’m officially oversharing. Can we start over? I really want to recovery position you.”
“I’d really like to be recovery positioned.”
It’s cute watching how hard she’s concentrating. She tries to lift my leg, just like I did to her, only to huff and try with two hands. “Do you want me to make it easier for you?”
“No!” she says, tugging my leg up to the correct position. “If you were passed out you wouldn’t be making it easier for me.”
“Okay then . . .”
“I feel like I’m working out, Jesus Christ. Why are you so big?” She’s going to kill me while trying to save me. “Oh, I forgot to check you were breathing!”
Before I can reassure her that I’m definitely breathing—for now—I’m drowning under a sea of blond hair that smells like peaches, as she puts her ear to my face. With all my limbs eventually in the right positions, she pulls me toward her, rolling me into the final pose.
“Well done, Aurora,” Jeremy says somewhere behind me. I hadn’t even registered he was there. “You guys can move onto the bandages now. There’s a step-by-step guide to follow, I’ll get you a pack and then you can shout me when you’re done.”
“Good job, partner,” she says, holding up her hand for me to high five. “We’re a good team.” I slap my palm against hers. “You’re really good at . . . recovering people.”
My lips quirk as I listen to her go on and on, looking more confused by herself with every word out of her mouth. “You’re good at recovering people too.”
“The sun is melting my brain. Let’s get the bandages. You can tie me up first.” She shakes her head, pressing her hand against her forehead. “I made it weird, didn’t I?”
Embarrassed Aurora is adorable. “Yeah. Good job, partner.”
Chapter Eleven
RUSS
Aurora is really, really drunk, which means I’m back to keeping my distance.
While Xander has assured me that people drank alcohol when he was here last year and nothing happened, I’m still choosing to stay away from the chaotic drinking game that appears to be half Truth or Dare half Never Have I Ever, depending on which side of the campfire circle you find yourself on.
Our cabin is one of eight counselor cabins that borders the lake, giving me the perfect vantage point to watch what all the other staff are doing, while also mind my business with my book.
My love for reading started when I was a kid and my dad would be in a bad mood because like most gamblers, he’s shit at gambling. Reading was the most fun I could have while making the least amount of noise and I always wanted to avoid drawing attention to myself when he was likely to start an argument over something.
It feels full circle to be the thing keeping me out of trouble as an adult.
I know to everyone else it makes me seem boring, but so far I love being here and, aside from the obvious reasons, that’s something else that makes me not want to be sent home. I can try not to worry about what people know about me or what they think about me, which is something I struggle to put to the back of my mind when I’m at college. I probably won’t see half of these people again and that’s what I keep telling myself when I’m trying to be myself and get involved.
There’s one person I might see again, though, and she’s currently drinking directly out of a liquor bottle and laughing loudly. It doesn’t feel authentic though, it feels like it’s for show. That’s a recurring thing I keep thinking about Aurora, about how happy she portrays herself to be, with big smiles and bigger laughs—and yet sometimes it feels forced.
I felt like the world’s biggest asshole earlier when she walked toward me, presumably to get me involved, and as soon as I saw the tequila bottle in her hand, I walked in the other direction toward my cabin and away from her. I’ve caught her looking over here a few times, but when she spots me looking back at her, she quickly focuses back on the game.
Grabbing my water bottle from the railing beside me, I stretch my legs and head to the water machines near the main lawn. It’s weird not having to worry about accidentally falling over a dog and I miss my little shadows when they’re not around.
Jenna says I should feel honored to be the chosen one and I do. I haven’t ever been anyone’s first choice, so I’m grabbing onto it with both hands. Even if they are dogs.
I’m walking past the empty kids’ cabins on the side of the main lawn when I hear shoes on the gravel path. Aurora’s cheeks are pink when she catches me up, eyes glassy. “I freaking hate running,” she pants, supporting herself against her knees as she tries to catch her breath. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting a drink. Is everything okay?”
She nods, standing up straight before immediately starting to sway on the spot. “Everything’s great. I love my life.” She doesn’t look like she loves her life. The way she says it is slurred and high pitched, unnatural and uncomfortable. I don’t know what happened between work this afternoon and now, when she looks one drink away from being the drunk girl that cries.
“Are you sure you’re oka—”
“You’re not joining in,” she stumbles forward, regaining her balance quickly and walking toward me until she’s close enough I could touch her if I wanted to. The smell of the fire lingers around us and it’s a welcome change from being assaulted by my own memories of her shampoo. Her lip wobbles as she takes a sharp intake of breath. “Is it me? Did I do something wrong?”